


The First Wish

by kinpandun



Series: Standing Together [1]
Category: Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z
Genre: F/M, For Science!, Gen, Prequel, Wishes, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 11:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18445961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpandun/pseuds/kinpandun
Summary: Every story starts somewhere, or somewhen.





	The First Wish

Halfway between Central and East City, where scrubland gave way to mountains in the north, deserts in the south, and more fertile land to either side, there existed a liminal space that’s normal interaction with people was limited to the soft brush of bandit hovercars as they made their fleeting way between oases, trade routes, and their hidden little cliffside caves like so many vultures on the wing. The Golden Hour spilled across the scratchy foothills, turning scrubs and thorn bushes into scattered crowns thrown upon the landscape. Cumulonimbus clouds loomed behind the Tsumisuri Mountains in the north, and left tingles in the sinuses as Baxer breathed in deeply, tasting the surplus of ions in the air, metallic like a licked battery.

 

Nettles crisped and crunched under the treads of his field assistant bot, FAB-3, beeping happily along as it set up the equipment Baxer had uncapsuled earlier in the afternoon. Baxer pushed himself off the side of his hoverbike and wandered over to the clearing in the center of his nearly complete “Ring of Science!” grinning in anticipation, and mastering his eager full-body shiver with all the aplomb only years of graduate study work where the difference between success and failure was measured in microns could bestow. Using an old pair of logger’s lifting tongs as an overlarge compass, he carefully transcribed a circle in the cleared ground. Baxer removed a small circular pin from the lapel of his lab coat, flipped it in the air like a coin, and placed it in the exact center of his new circle. He gave the flat top a quick poke, and the seam along its edge popped open, seven equidistant lasers blinking to life around the edges. Humming, Baxer took a pen from his pocket and poked a small divot on every point where the laser lines intersected his circle.

 

An emphatically happy beep from FAB-3 brought Baxer’s attention back to his ring of instruments, now softly whirring to life, running systems checks and calibrating to the local electromagnetic field and altitude.

 

“Well done, FAB-3! Once my babies finish settling in, we’ll be good to go.” He listened to the tones of the array as it settled in, and when it sighed happily, he continued. “And on that note, please begin recording FAB-3.” A red light appeared near FAB-3’s tri-ocular cameras as it focused in on Baxer in the center of the circle.

 

“Today I will either embarrass myself or make greater strides in Unified Theory than anyone on Earth to date! Can’t say I’m not a little excited to find out which, so how about we get this party started, eh?” He reached into an inner pocket of his lab coat and removed a small case, popping it open with a soft _chk_ to reveal seven small capsule pods inside. “In these capsules are seven matching artifacts, of purportedly magical nature, capable of warping the fabric of reality itself! Pretty hefty stuff. Let’s see what the readouts say about them though.” Baxer carefully released the first capsuled artifact into his left palm.

 

“This, my friends, is a Dragon Ball,” he said, holding the weighty orb up to catch the light, glinting like a perfect citrine in honeyed sunlight, a single orange star floating in its center. “Notice how the central star seems to be dead-on to you, no matter how I rotate it? At first I thought it was some sort of asterism or unique pleochromatic effect, but after consultation with some geologists to familiarize myself with the field, that appears not to be the case. Now the ancient texts, I mean, _first hand document references_ , indicate that you need to place them in a circle, so I have a circle drawn on the ground here at my feet, points arranged equally along the circumference, with any two contiguous Dragon Balls making an equilateral triangle with the circle’s central point. Not sure how finicky this “magic” is,” he said, air quotes hanging in his tone. “But better safe than sorry!”

 

He gently placed the orb on the northern-most point in the circle, and stood to uncapsule the second one. “I’ll give it one minute between each release,” he shared with FAB-3 and its rolling cameras, counting down the seconds on his watch. “All right, here we go,” he said after some time staring intently at the numbers counting down on its display. He uncapsuled a second artifact into his palm and set it down to the right of the first one, two stars floating gently inside. “Each Dragon Ball has a set amount of stars inside, numbering one through seven. Just in case doing it wrong causes some sort of horrible backlash, or just plain doesn’t work, I figured it’d be best if we went in order.” He peered deeply into the orb. “I may be mistaken, but I think with a second artifact present, there may have been a slight increase in luminosity. I’ll go over the data after completing the experiment to confirm.”

 

Baxer uncapsuled the third Dragon Ball, placing it gently in the next pen-marked divot in the ground. “Yes, now I’m sure of it! There was a definite increase in luminosity just now. We’ll have to see if it’s proportional or exponential as we go.” He waited the full minute, because excitement at a confirmed hypothesis was never an excuse for shoddy work, and then eagerly released the fourth Dragon Ball. “You, my pretties, are just glorious. Let’s get sewing on the fabric of reality together, huh? What a pair of tailors we make!” Laughing, he placed the four star Dragon Ball in the circle’s next divot and ‘woop’ed excitedly when all four artifacts began to emit a soft radiant glow, of higher luminosity, than the surrounding clearing could naturally provide.

 

Humming when he wasn’t grinning, Baxer carefully released the fifth and sixth Dragon Balls in their turn, noting the increase in local light levels each time he did so. The air felt heavy on his tongue, humid and dense, like a Tesla coil in a sauna as the rocks began to heat. The twining and twinned smells of capsaicin and menthol wafted in Baxer’s nose as he took a deep breath in preparation. “Well here goes eighteen years of travel and searching, slaving over odd readouts and tracking elusive particles across the globe!” With nothing else to say, Baxer uncapsuled the seventh and final Dragon Ball, and placed it in the last divot, completing the circle, and the circuit.

 

The seven Dragon Balls glowed their brightest yet, and began to pulse in time with each other, washing the circle of surrounding equipment in waves of golden light. Thunder cracked from over the Tsumisuri Mountains, the darkening columns of cumulonimbus spilling south over the peaks and valleys. The air in the clearing stirred, and small granules of dirt and scattered leaf litter flew back from the glowing circle in the center. Restraining his grin, Baxer composed himself, straightening the fall of his lab coat across his shoulders, brushing a bit of dust off his sleeve, and pulling his shoulders back upright and into presentation mode. He made long eye contact with FAB-3’s cameras across the glowing, thrumming, _functioning_ , circle of reality-warping artifacts, and gave a quick, professorial, throat-clearing cough into his right fist.

 

“Eh-hem! Rise, Shen Long!”

**Author's Note:**

> This is just what I have so far, but I have outlines created with my spouse/partner/idea-bouncing wall that go for DAYS. I hope to get at least some of it out, because I am trying to break through a decade's worth of writers' block right now. It was originally supposed to be for NANOWRIMO, but I need to get this out there when I can, as I can, or I maybe never will. I hope you liked it so far, and I will be putting up more as I have the mental energy to do so.
> 
> Thanks for reading,  
> Kin Pandun.


End file.
